A few years ago as I was returning home late one night from a children’s ministry conference, I was feeling pretty good. Full of joy actually. I had just come from a huge banquet room filled with hundreds of children’s ministry workers all singing praise songs. It had been incredible experience hearing all those voices raised in praise to our Savior. I had never been with such a large group of believers.

So I was riding pretty high on my way home, singing more praise songs, feeling just fine and dandy. That’s one reason – OK, BESIDES the fact that I heard a voice in my HEAD!!!!!That was HUGE! A FIRST! – why those words – so clear, so concise, so profound – affected me so strongly that I had to pull over. There was no way I could have been imagining them….no reason that I should. I wasn’t feeling “untrusting.” Just the opposite.

Another reason? I realized they were true.

And that, my friends, started a many-years-long conversation between Jesus and me.

It was quite a revelation to me. I mean, I had given my life to Christ. I was attending Bible Studies, learning, serving. I was even the Children’s Ministry leader at church! I thought I trusted Him. But He knew my heart. And He knew that I wasn’t quite there yet. Where He wanted me to be.

I wish I could tell you that after everything that has happened in my life that I now totally and completely trust Himand have faith in everything that He does in my life. But I’ll be honest….I can’t tell you that.

Oh, I have come soooooo far. My faith has grown immensely. It doesn’t always seem that way to me as I’m living it. But if I look back in my journals, I can see the “faith and trust trail.” That’s one of the reason I love NEED to journal. Just like the Israelites built altars and memorials after God did something mighty in their lives, I need to memorialize what He’s done in mine.

My last post dealt with the fear that the Holy Spirit won’t “come through” for us and that it all comes down to our faith and our belief that He is good. But that doesn’t mean that living the Christian life and being God’s child will be “safe” and “pain-free.”

I found this very interesting site, Narnia Faith. The introduction reminds us of some of the theological lessons:

In chapter eight of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as Mr. Beaver is trying to describe what Aslan is like, Susan jumps in to ask, “Is he—quite safe?”

We might ask the same question about Christ, and the answer we would like to hear might be something like, “Of course, coming to Christ will be perfectly safe.”

Lewis returns to this subject of Aslan not being tame or subject to anyone’s control in the first chapter of The Silver Chair. There as Eustace and Jill are trying to evade the Experiment House bullies, they decide to ask Aslan to let them into Narnia. Eustace points out that they cannot “make him do things.” He tells Jill, “Really, we can only ask him.” Later in chapter two, Jill, who is desperately thirsty, wants to drink from a stream which the great lion is next to. She asks, “Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?”

“I make no promise,” Aslan answers—clearly indicating that he is neither safe nor tame.

For me, and probably you, that’s where the problem lies. We want safe and tame. And our King is neither.

We think it would be better if God would just do what we thought He should, but we’d be missing Him in the mess of our own desires and plans. I’ve been meaning to read the Silver Chair and its been on my mind the last week. The quote from Aslan, “I make no promise,” is so akin to the theme of my walk with Him over the past 6 months. It’s been agonizing at times, but I’m beginning to realize the wisdom of God in that He never submits to my attempts to control Him or make His plans for me safe. I think I’ll pull out that book and read it now!

So true! And so hard to “get it.” Thanks for stopping by and for your words. I haven’t read any of the Narnia books in a while either….this really does make me want to read them ALL again – they each have such good little nuggets to pull out.